PRO FOOTBALL; Carpenter Is Adding To Jet Receiver Riches

Ask the Jets' Rob Carpenter what happened to him in Cincinnati and New England last season that caused him to wash out in both places and you're likely to get a puzzled look and a shrug of the shoulders.

"I really can't explain it to you -- I have no idea," said Carpenter, a second-year wide receiver who was cut by the Bengals after they drafted him out of Syracuse in the fourth round and then was picked up by the Patriots.

"I don't know what happened but I had a pretty good preseason as a rookie," Carpenter said yesterday. "I was second on the Bengals in receptions. I knew they wanted to put me on the practice squad but that didn't work out because New England claimed me."

Carpenter played in eight games for the Patriots. He started one game, caught three passes for 45 yards -- the longest for 23 -- and then was left unprotected on Plan B and was picked up by the Jets on March 16. Six Catches Against Falcons

Now Carpenter seems to have found a home with the Jets. In Sunday's 20-17 defeat in Atlanta, he was the Jets' leading receiver with 6 catches for 109 yards. His long one of 51 yards surpassed all of last season's numbers in one afternoon.

With his days as a Patriot behind him and pleasantly forgotten, Carpenter hopes to give the Jets more spark in the receivers department, where the Jets are deep and strong. And he is reunited with Rob Moore, a fellow Long Islander and a teammate of Carpenter at Syracuse.

Moore was a standout wide receiver at Hempstead High School and Carpenter played at Amityville Memorial High. Carpenter was recruited as a quarterback at Notre Dame but transferred from South Bend after his freshman year. In 1989 he used his passing skill to throw a 69-yard bomb to Moore on an end-around play for the Orange.

"It was fun," said Carpenter about those college days. "Two guys up there from the same area, running around on the field catching passes and scoring touchdowns. That's always fun, and to come back now and be doing the same thing? That just adds to it." Plenty of Competition

Carpenter, however, has to find a place among the talented wide receivers, with Al Toon and Moore, plus Chris Burkett, a former starter for Buffalo, and Terance Mathis on board.

Before deciding to get Carpenter, the Jets asked Moore about him.

"You know I'm not going to dog my boy," said Moore. "We're good friends so it's good to have him here and have an opportunity to do the things we did in college."

Moore was second in catches for the Jets last season with 70, behind Toon's 74, but he led the team in yards with 987 to Toon's 963. He also led in touchdown catches with five, one more than Burkett. Toon had none.

"He played pretty well -- a great addition," said Coslet. "Al Toon's hamstring tightened up on him at the half and we were afraid he was going to pull it some more so he didn't play too much in the second half. We were going with some three wide receiver- sets the whole day and Rob came in instead in place of Burkett. We know he can play."

With Browning Nagle connecting on 21 of 37 passes for 366 yards and one touchdown in his first pro start, the Jets' passing game was their most potent weapon. Their running produced only 68 yards.

Carpenter was also used as a punt returner. He returned 3 for 18 yards, a long one of 16. But Some Regrets

One of Carpenter's regrets, aside from the Jets' loss, was sitting helplessly on the sidelines while the Falcons used the last five and a half minutes of the game to seal the victory.

Another was the sack suffered by Nagle at the hands of Jesse Solomon in the fourth quarter. Carpenter was supposed to go in motion and pick up Solomon, a blitzing linebacker.

"I was supposed to go in motion but I didn't get the signal," said Carpenter, who had been waiting for the cue from Nagle. "They were on the silent snap because there was so much noise. He was supposed to lift his leg. I should've gone in on my own but at the time the ball was already being snapped so there was nothing I could do." EXTRA POINTS

The Jets placed rookie tight end JOHNNY MITCHELL on injured reserve yesterday with a sprained shoulder. The 6-3, 263-pound No. 1 draft pick suffered a slight separation of his left shoulder in the Jets' first drive of the second half on Sunday after his only reception, a 23-yard catch. He now has to miss at least the next four weeks, and cannot return until Oct. 11 at Indianapolis.

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A version of this article appears in print on September 9, 1992, on Page B00012 of the National edition with the headline: PRO FOOTBALL; Carpenter Is Adding To Jet Receiver Riches. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe